The anti-piracy law will spread on music and books following films

September 18, 2013, 12:43 UTC+3Experts believe law is flawed and inefficient

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Deputies from the United Russia party Robert Shlegel and Maria Maksakova submitted a bill of an amended law regarding protection of intellectual property in the Internet in the State Duma on Tuesday. If the document is approved, the anti-piracy law will be applied not only to movies, but also to music, written works and software.

Along with under the effect of the law, the bill proposes to fix a clear-cut procedure of filing claims, Rossiiskaya Gazeta daily noted. Before the trial a copyright holder must demand the owner of the website should remove the disputed information within 48 hours. If this comes to an extraordinary situation the webpage address should be blocked if possible, not the IP address in order not to affect other web resources and web users. No tight deadlines exist today, as the Internet resources are blocked according to their IP addresses.

Co-chairman of the Association of Internet Users Stanislav Kozlovsky, who is cited by RBC Daily, believes that after the effect of the anti-piracy law is expanded courts will be unable to cope with the inflow of notices from the copyright holders. Kozlovsky believes the main shortcoming of the recent bill as well as the whole anti-piracy legislation is the procedure of blocking the websites prior to court proceedings, if the pirate content is found on them. “Shlegel’s bill preserved the blocking principle, though even the Russian telecommunications watchdog acknowledged that this method of struggle against piracy is inefficient,” the co-chairman of the Association of Internet Users told the newspaper.

On Tuesday, the Russian telecommunications watchdog has found the anti-piracy law efficient in general, Nezavisimaya Gazeta daily noted. Meanwhile, the deputies continue to improve the legislation, they want to protect the rights not only on the video products, but also music, pieces of literature and software. However, the Internet community is dissatisfied with the anti-piracy law. The consumers, who are not prepared to pay for music downloading and video watching, are mostly affected from the law. The revenues of the copyright holders will hardly grow, because an upsurge in the attendance of movie theatres and purchases of legal video is not observed yet. Experts propose to mull a generally available alternative to pirate websites, which would suit the consumers and the copyright holders.

Not all polled experts were enthusiastic about anti-piracy legislation. Its efficiency is false, they believe. “Obviously, the number of websites with illegal content is many thousand times more than the capacities of the Moscow City Court and the Russian telecommunications watchdog supports their blocking. The Internet is a live environment, which is growing and changing actively, and it is impossible to track down all re-emerging resources by means of judicial authorities,” lawyer of the company Zuikov and Partners Yekaterina Petukhova said. “Meanwhile, some loopholes for abuses exist. The incorrect link to the webpage, where the illegal content is posted, by the copyright holder can entail the shutdown of the whole website, instead of, say, a concrete section with the content. The torrents have never been within jurisdiction of the intellectual rights law, therefore, it is strange to expect that a new law will change something,” she added.